He writes some very lengthy and informative articles about cameras, lenses, shooting methods, and it's all free. Check it out if you have time to read about photography and you want to learn more about digital photography and DSLR equipment.

The front page has a list of all the articles, so unless you want to scan that list, I'd suggest doing a search or starting here. "What makes a great camera." You'll get an idea of where to go next since he links other articles within all of his write-ups. It's like a never ending story. :)

I'll gladly take some money for advice. I know people like to whine about paying for information, so here's a little story:

So this asshole emails me, kissing up, telling me how great he thinks my work is. *Then* he's talking about how if I feel if the 5D MKII (which cost $2700, body only) is a good choice, because if I do, he'll go and buy that. I tell him

"Dude, pay me $200, and I'll tell you what you need to know in spades, plus I'll save you a lot of money on unnecessary equipment."

He acts shocked that I had the audacity to ask to be paid for advice. So I tell him how it is:

"Listen, you're willing to pay Canon $2700 for a new camera for a hobby, but you're not willing to spend a dime on your education? Yeah, go buy the camera. You'll need another $2500 in lenses for your upgrade, too."

I consistently out shoot photojournalists with "professional" gear any and every time we share common space. I don't care about your degree in photojournalism, how many years you were an editor for your paper, how many NFL games you've covered. If you've never covered a combat sport, chances are you're not going to do well the first dozen or so times out. Even most "experienced" photographers struggle with this kind of action.

I recommend using whatever camera body you've got and making the most with it. If some asshole insists on using his current lens lineup and compensating for his f/3.5-5.6 bullshit IS gimmick of a lens with jacked up ISOs, so be it.

Haha, I've found better sites since posting, but I still go back to read up on lenses or Nikon equipment...I found a couple articles that I didn't really like (where he tries to make fun of anyone who doesn't do exactly what he does), but since then I just look at lens info on his site.

he's too opinionated and just needs to be more factual. sure he can have an opinion but the way he presents it makes everyone think that he's full of himself. they're probably right.

he'll give a recommendation for a set of lenses and a camera body for some experienced amateur wanting to become pro and I'm thinking.."what the f@#$%?" I would NOT choose that gear AT ALL if I were a newbie trying to go pro.

He has some iphone apps he just came out with and I saw them on a friend of mine's phone who's just learning and was raving about KenRockwell. They were laughable and they were supposed to be portable manuals for reference by professional photographers. Haha. I gave him a bad review and you could tell he signed on anonymously and gave himself a good review right afterwards. He's a joke.

SnapLocally..just curious what body and lenses you prefer when shooting cageside. I haven't had the opportunity yet but if I do someday then I'm curious about your gear choices.

My "gear choices" were largely predicated on what I can afford at the time.

I took this one with a Canon XTi and a used Tamron 28-75:
There's no one right answer, but to get you in the ballpark you're going to want a camera that can shoot decently at no less than iso 1600, and a lens with a straight aperture of f/2.8 (or brighter, say a 50mm f/1.8).

I have decent gear. I was asking more to just see what you preferred to use when you shot MMA. What do you bring in your bag today?

I have a Nikon D3x and a D700 for a backup. I have quite a few Nikkor lenses with the 70-200 VR II F2.8 , 24-70 F2.8, and the 14-24 F2.8 being some of them. I also have some primes like the 50 F1.8 and F1.4, 85 F1.4 and 105 F2.

I also had the Tamron 28-75 2.8 and the Tamron 70-200 2.8 before I upgraded.

^^lol at "decent gear," that shit is AWESOME! If you are cageside/ringside I'd throw the 85 1.4 or the 70-200VR on either the D3x or D700. Depending on the lighting of the event you are at, you may want to go with the 85 1.4 over the 70-200.

Yeah. I love my gear. I also say decent because what I REALLY want is medium format. I want either a Hasselblad or Mamiya. That to me is awesome gear. But my skills don't warrant that kind of expense. Nor could I afford them. But the Nikon D3x or the Canon Mark III or IV is about the closest you can get to medium format without actually being medium format.

Rocky's site is a great place to learn about the basics of the photography world and a lot of his gear advice is not that bad at all and contains some good facts people don't always want to hear. i.e. better gear does not make you a better photog, etc...

However he also has a lot of information up that is complete and utter bullshit, such as lately he is recommending the only digital worthy of buying is a $9000 Leica M9, or that you should shoot MF/LF film and scan and you get much higher quality. Perhaps the biggest single piece of bullshit that he sells is that RAW is overrated and pointless. Maybe if you are one of those people who puts your DSLR in Program/Auto mode and just clicks away for snapshots of the kids to send to Grandma and Grandpa, but I don't know of anybody that shoots on a somewhat serious level that doesn't shoot RAW. The ability to recover lost detail out of shadows/highlights is uncanny and is IMO the best thing since sliced bread.

Also some of his reviews contradict what the majority of other pro reviewers will tell you. Rocky will say that lens X is crappy at setting Y, but a slew of pros will post pictures and reviews of the same lens being one of the best out there at those settings.

SnapLocally - I wouldn't go so far to say that RAW is "pointless", but I do agree that it's overrated. I'd say that if one needs that 6+ stop latitude that RAW provides, the problem is the photographer.

When I'm out on location I need to be prepared for worst case lighting scenarios, and for me there's only one viable solution: take the shot right the first time.

Rocky is the one who says RAW is pointless, I think it is fantastic actually.

Yes, I gathered that. My point was that if the photographer takes the shot correctly, RAW isn't need the vast majority of the time. And with what I do- Combat Sports Photography- it isn't an option at all.

RAW gets you more detail, better colour reproduction, better dynamic range and the best part is as the converting software gets better over time, you can go back and eek out even more from the RAW file...
The only time I could possibly see creating JPGs in camera would be if I were on a stupidly short wire deadline and then I would shoot both RAW+Jpeg...

I shoot right the first time, so RAW would only be a waste of my time and space. I find that far too many "photographers" use RAW as a crutch because they need the latitude. These same photographers will end up "upgrading" to more expensive equipment because they refuse to accept that their sub-par shots were user error and not their equipment.

IMO you're missing out on all the details bunny mentioned. If you can make excellent shots right out of the camera in JPEG's you should be able to improve on the quality several times with properly converted RAW images.

The best example of RAW to the rescue I can think of for myself is the recent shoot I did at our BJJ club. It's under fluorescent lights and as we all know those lights change color around 50 times per second. If you're in JPEG you're going to have to deal with the white balance the camera thinks. From personal experience in the past the camera only gets it right about 50% of the time. The first time I shot there in JPEG only I had to throw away more than half of the images due to incorrect white balance. Can't really correct white balance on a JPEG very well.
Last time I shot, I did RAW only and voila! Every image could be adjusted as needed to have a perfect white balance.

That being said, I do shoot JPEG for snapshots to send to the grandparents, or something quick. Anything that I get paid for is RAW and each image custom adjusted.

Yes, I'm well aware of the funky colors fluorescent can produce while cycling. But I'm also aware of the redundancy of shots when shooting something as relatively easy as BJJ to know that you would've had more than enough usable shots even under these conditions.

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